Mr Begg was held in a windowless cell at the American detention camp at Bagram airbase, near Kabul, for a year before being moved to Guantanamo Bay where he was kept until being released in January 2005.

The main focus of Mr Begg's campaign since his release has been to prove that his treatment and that of other Britons who ended up in Guantanamo was sanctioned at the highest levels of the British government.

“I was never after individuals, rather it was very clear to me and others who were subjected to torture with the complicity of British intelligence services that we (need to) get to the top of this and (find out) how far up the chain of command did it go?”

The Detainee Inquiry, chaired by Sir Peter Gibson, and announced by the Prime Minister in July 2010 will now look into these wider claims of detainee abuse and torture though it has been boycotted by human rights groups who claim it has no credibility.

They have pulled out because former detainees and their lawyers will not be able to question intelligence officials and that the majority of security and intelligence officials will give their evidence in private.

“None of the former prisoners (of Guantanamo), none of the NGO's and none of the lawyers are taking part in it after it was told to us by the Gibson inquiry that we would not get to see, or speak (to) or put questions to these individuals who we know and believe were involved in our torture," said Mr Begg.

Scotland Yard has decided that the allegations raised in two cases referred to them by Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, last December concerning the alleged rendition of individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya were “so serious that it is in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the detainee inquiry.”

The statement did not name the cases but they are thought to refer to Abdel Hakim Belhadj and Abu Munthir al-Saadi, the leader and religious leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a terrorist organisation linked to al-Qaeda.

“I believe crimes have been committed and they will be investigated and must be investigated by the police and that is what they have assured us they will do,” said Mr Begg.